In general, a vehicle body a vehicle body passes through a process that assemblies various product panels produced in a vehicle body sub process to have a body in white (B.I.W) shape.
The vehicle body is constituted by components including a floor panel supporting driving units such as an engine and an axle and seats in a lower part of a frame, both side panels forming left and right sides of the frame, a roof panel forming the top of the frame, other multiple cowl panels, a roof rail, a package tray, and a back panel. The vehicle body components are assembled in a process (also referred to as a body build-up process in the art) called a main buck.
In the main buck process, the back panel is attached to the floor panel and thereafter, the both side panels, the cowl panel, the roof rail, the packet tray, and the roof panel are welded and assembled through a vehicle body assembling system.
For example, the vehicle body system restricts the side panels through a side hanger and a side gate and sets the side panels in the floor panel, sets the cowl panel, the roof rail, and the packet tray in the side panels and thereafter, welds attachment portions of the components through a welding robot.
The vehicle body assembling system in the related art includes a rotary index (also generally referred to as a ‘4-plane rotator” in the art) in which side gates for each vehicle type are installed on 4 planes, respectively. The 4-plane rotary index may rotate while restricting the side panel for each vehicle type through each side gate and set the side panels of the corresponding vehicle type at both sides of the floor panel at regular locations.
In the related art, since a whole frame of the vehicle body is restricted at once through the side gate for each vehicle type of the 4-plane rotary index, the weight and the size of the whole vehicle body assembling system cannot but increase.
Further, in the related art, since the side gate for each vehicle type is installed on each plane of the 4-plane rotary index, a large-weight huge facility needs to be additionally installed in order to assemble the vehicle bodies of five vehicle types or more.
Korean Patent Registration No. 1326816 (Registered on Nov. 1, 2013) discloses subject matter that is related to subject matter disclosed herein.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.